I am of a few minds about this. Firstly, I do not want to create a political environment where the government can tell people how their phones can be made (w.r.

I am of a few minds about this. Firstly, I do not want to create a political environment where the government can tell people how their phones can be made (w.r.t. security, particularly). Thus, I want there to be clear limits on what federal agencies are able to do. But secondly, I am skeptical about the way giant corporations wield their power against the government. Apple surely has its own priorities and goals, which are often at odds with mine and, separately, those of the government that represents me. While I have a small bit of influence on how my government operates I have even less influence on how such corporations operate, even though their decisions greatly affect my life. When their position re:privacy reflects mine, I am glad for it, but what happens when the issue is taxation or trade policy? My government might not be pursuing great solutions on these issues, but I don't really trust giant self-interested corporations to have a better solution. Thirdly, though, I am personally concerned about how this debate cements Apple's power to lock down their devices even, in many ways against their users. The particulars of their security design seem to preclude users from writing their own operating systems for the phone or creating/using software that isn't directly sanctioned by the company. The same applies, to a great extent, to other hardware and software vendors (in particular, Google/Microsoft/Motorola/Samsung/HTC/etc.). I suspect this battle will end up giving us more locked-down devices in the name of security.